


What If?

by AshleyJinxxBiersack



Category: Supernatural
Genre: How Sam coped before he carried on hunting, Lonely Sam needs a hug, Season 3 Finale, The first month after Dean went to Hell, the aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 04:16:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3714706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshleyJinxxBiersack/pseuds/AshleyJinxxBiersack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death is always the hardest part of existing, and when you lose someone you love, you always start to ask <i>what if?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What If?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spiritual_spud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritual_spud/gifts).



> This work was inspired by a good friend of mine. She did a drawing and posted it on Tumblr and I felt a feel and this happened.

Dealing with someone's death is always hard, no matter who it is.

Even if you don't know the deceased, it still hits something inside you pretty hard, and it pushes you to keep realising over and over again that life is short, and it's precious, and it could be taken from you at any given time.

When a death occurs, you spend hours, days, weeks, months and even years after the moment wondering _what if?_ What if you hadn't made that stupid decision when you were kids? What if you hadn't gone to that one party or had that one drink? What if you hadn't taken that job and what if you hadn't even met the person in the first place?

It's hard to deal with a death, but what's worse is when it's family.

Mary Winchester's death was hard on her husband, because she left behind two beautiful boys, aged four, and aged six months. John did everything he could from that day forward to never make this mistakes he'd made before, because he knew that he would never live with himself if he ever had to feel the same pain losing Sam and Dean that he did when losing Mary.

Twenty-two years later, Sam was the one to find out exactly how painful it could be to lose someone, and how often after that moment that the _what if's_ would come and haunt your every waking moment. Jessica, the love of his life and the woman he was determined to make his wife, died the same gruesome death his mother had been forced into, and for what? He still had no answers to that question almost four years later.

After John Winchester died in exchange for Dean's life, the brother's shared their pain while at the same time trying to keep it bottled inside. They fought, and they had the chick-flick moments they hated so much. Dean drank and worked on rebuilding the Impala from the ground up with what he could salvage from what was left after the accident, and Sam watched from afar, making sure his brother was doing okay while keeping his own feelings shoved down inside.

And now, two years on, Sam found himself sat in the Impala alone, living the moment his father had died to avoid two years earlier. A lot of things had gone wrong in the last year, and Sam was being flooded with _what if's_ taking him back as far as _what if I hadn't even been born?_

Dean Winchester; reckless, selfish and ignorant, yet self-less and kind natured with a heart of pure gold. Dean always swore he'd do whatever it took to protect Sam, and he meant every word of it. Dean had taken every beating in the book for Sam. He'd been shot, stabbed, beaten up, threatened, kidnapped and almost killed to stop his little brother facing the same situations, but this time was different.

Sam _had_ died, and Dean wasn't okay with that. He wasn't ready to let go and accept that something had gone horribly wrong and he was now all alone in the world. Instead, he'd sold his soul to bring Sam back, only to be given a year instead of ten to spend with his brother doing what they'd been doing pretty much their entire lives. For the first week or more, Dean kept it a secret, but something caved him and Sam found out. Of course, Sam had been upset. Dean brought him back so he wouldn't have to be alone, and now, with the planet on the brink of a possible war with all kinds of unnatural beings, Dean was gone and Sam was alone.

It was these events that had Sam sat alone in the passenger's side of the black sixty-seven Chevy Impala, thinking things through over and over again, trying to find a way to bring Dean back, just like Dean had done for him. No demon would take his soul, and no being with magical powers was strong enough or stupid enough to pull Dean out of Hell. Sam was lost. Totally and utterly lost.

Dean had known there was no escaping this fate, which is why he'd left a box of a few of the very few things he had tucked away in Bobby's place with Sam's name scrawled over it. His leather jacket had been the first thing Sam had pulled out of that box, followed closely by Dean's favourite hand-gun, the silver flask he'd won in a gambling game one night in Vegas, and a loosely scribbled note that came to have a home in Sam's coat pocket. Sam read that note over and over again, memorising every curve of his older brother's chicken scratch writing, hoping that hidden somewhere within would be even the smallest hint of a way to bring him back again.

Bobby had wanted to cremate Dean, just as they'd always done to their loved ones in a family of hunters, but Sam wouldn't take that for a final decision. He argued that Dean would need a body to come back to when he got out of Hell.

Sam didn't ever want to be alone. He didn't like being alone. Not like this.

_Look after Baby for me, okay? You look after my damn car, Sam, or so help me God I'll haunt your sorry ass._

Dean had left Sam the keys to the Impala. There was only one thing Dean loved more than that car, and that was Sam himself. Dean very rarely let Sam drive the Impala, let alone let him own it. But now he was gone and the car was his. It'd been a month already, and he'd driven very little in that time, unable to bring himself to sit in that seat his brother would usually occupy while singing obnoxiously loudly to some trashy rock song that he'd turn up loud just to annoy Sam.

Sam found himself more often than not, sitting and listening to those exact tapes as loud as he could in the middle of nowhere.

The younger Winchester would sometimes drive out to a field somewhere where no one was surrounding the area for miles around. He'd park in the middle of the field and shove a tape in, turning it up as loud as he could, before climbing up onto the roof with a bottle of beer and a heavy heart, watching the stars light up the night sky while the hours passed him by, just like he and Dean would always do when they got a day to themselves.

This day was one of the days where Sam couldn't bear to drive the car anywhere. It was one of his harder days, and instead, he settled for just sitting shotgun, complaining to himself about Dean's bad choice in music, desperate to hear his brother's stupid reply that always, _always_ made him laugh. _Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole._

"I'll put on some AC/DC. Maybe then you'll come back," Sam finally muttered to himself, caving and grabbing the cardboard box of cassette tapes from the back seat and rummaging carefully until he found Dean's favourite AC/DC tape. He started up the engine then pushed the tape into the player, turning it up to the volume Dean would usually have it at while they drove miles over open roads, pushing speed limits to see how fast his Baby could go.

Aside from the music playing, there was utter silence surrounding Sam and the car. He sighed, starting to talk to himself again.

"This is still bad music," he muttered. He almost cracked a smile as he glanced over at the driver's seat, but he was still very much alone, making him slouch down in the seat. "Damn it, Dean. You're supposed to tell me to stop complaining. _Shotgun shuts his cakehole_ , remember?" Sam wasn't sure how to deal with this anymore. He'd buried his brother who hadn't even turned thirty yet, and he was now sat in his car feeling lost and unsure of what to do. He still couldn't get used to this. He didn't think he ever would get used to this.

"Come on, Dean. Where are you?" Sam asked above the music still playing. "I need you. You're supposed to be here. This isn't fair!" With no reply, Sam sighed irritably, swallowing down his tears as he shut off the tape and placed it carefully in the box that was now placed in the back of the car again. He sat a little while longer, mulling everything over, before he decided what he had to do. What he knew he had to do no matter what.

"Come on, Sam," he told himself, sliding over to the driver's seat and settling in his brother's place. "It's what Dean would want."

And that's what he told himself as he drove along the highways, as far out from Illinois as he could possibly get. Sam had to get back out there and do the job that had been left entirely on his shoulders now. He had to come to terms with what he is and could be. He had to learn to deal with Dean not being right beside him anymore. He had to learn to work alone and learn to survive doing the only thing he knew how to do right. Sam started hunting again, because he knew that's what Dean would want him to do. Dean wouldn't want him to sit moping for the rest of his life. He wouldn't do that, so why should Sam?

Sam just kept driving and working to that mindset for the weeks that followed, jobs coming and going nonstop to keep his mind occupied. He'd taken his full time spot in the driver's seat of the Impala, and right above him, pinned to the sun visor, was the note that he would always look at while he was in the car, reminding him exactly why he was doing this.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. Badly written feels and stuff. Feel that feel, bro. Feel it.


End file.
